Maaloula Nun Captors Seek Release of All Islamist Prisoners in Roumieh

Informed sources told Al-Akhbar that ongoing negotiations to procure the release of the Maaloula nuns kidnapped by al-Nusra Front and held in the Syrian city of Yabroud close to the Lebanese border have been deadlocked since December 6. The sources also pointed to an unwelcome development regarding the fate of one of the two bishops, Yohanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yazigi, who were kidnapped in Aleppo about eight months ago.

The sources pointed out that a non-Syrian official in the group holding the nuns had expressed a desire to quickly resolve this issue before another official from the same group stepped in, slowing the process and making additional demands.

The sources said three parties are working to reach an agreement with the kidnappers. The first and most serious party is a global organization that has strong influence in Syria these days. The second party is a coordinating group that includes Lebanon, Qatar, and Turkey. The last party is a Syrian businessman who has strong ties to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad but also wields influence on the ground in Yabroud.

The sources said that Syrian authorities informed church officials in and outside Syria of their willingness to facilitate the mediators’ task. They expressed, however, reservations about cooperation with Qatar and Turkey, even though they did not mind if the Lebanese General Directorate of General Security Abbas Ibrahim continued his contacts with security officials in Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to resolve this issue.

According to these sources, the Syrian businessman is George Haswani from Yabroud. He wields some influence in Yabroud and was able, in cooperation with the elders of the city, to spare it harsh confrontations with the Syrian army on a number of occasions. He mediated with the kidnappers’ leader, who informed him that they had to transfer the nuns from Maaloula to Yabroud after they received information that the Syrian army was planning to bomb Maaloula, kill the nuns, and then accuse his group of killing them.

Haswani conveyed to the captors guarantees that the Syrian leadership would not take any action that would endanger the nuns’ lives. After negotiations, the militants agreed to move the nuns to one of the palaces owned by Haswani, who tacitly agreed to give the armed group permission to manage the security situation in and around his palace. He also managed to have at least one mediator and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch John X Yazigi talk on the phone with one of the nuns.

The sources revealed that the demands put forward during the first phase of negotiations focused mainly on receiving ransom money. At this point, the Qataris volunteered to pay to secure the success of the deal. They wanted the nuns transferred to Lebanon where they would welcome them alongside church and Lebanese officials.

Suddenly, the kidnappers raised their demands to include an exchange of Islamist prisoners being held in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, in accordance with the nationalities of the nuns.

The group, which includes members linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Nusra Front, is demanding that the Iraqi government release dozens of ISIS members detained by Iraqi authorities. In Syria, the kidnappers demanded the release of more than a thousand detainees, many affiliated with hardline Islamist groups.

A high-level security source told Al-Akhbar that the kidnappers also demanded the release of all Islamist prisoners in Lebanon’s Roumieh prison. Their list included Saudis, Tunisians, Libyans, Palestinians and Syrians who were detained during the 2007 Nahr al-Bared battle with the Lebanese army and in connection with the February 21, 2007 bombing of two civilian buses that killed three people in the town of Ain Alak in Northern Metn.

While the mediator told the kidnappers that these demands were unfeasible, the Iraqi and Lebanese governments decided, separately, that they would not enter this bazaar. This allowed Haswani to focus on releasing detainees from Syrian prisons. He told the mediators that the Syrian leadership is ready to facilitate this task to the maximum degree. He emphasized, however, that Damascus does not approve of transferring released detainees outside Syrian territories, but rather gives them the right to choose.

As an example, the Syrian authorities refer to the story of the Syrian female prisoners who were released in return for the Lebanese pilgrims kidnapped in Azaz, Syria. Damascus refused at the time to transfer them to a Qatari plane meant to fly them to Turkey. They instead insisted on delaying the decision of their release to a later time. When they were finally released, the Syrian authorities facilitated the efforts led by General Abbas Ibrahim and head of Qatari intelligence Ahmed bin Nasser bin Jassim who sent a delegation to the Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria to interview the released detainees, all of whom refused to leave Syria.

Informed sources revealed that the two kidnapped bishops are not held in the same location as the nuns, nor are they being held by the same group. The sources explained that an armed group was able to capture one of the bishops from his previous captors and move him to its headquarters in the Aleppo countryside.

According to sources, negotiations had led to an agreement to hand over the bishop to a mediator on Lebanese territory. But battlefield developments complicated the mission, as it became difficult for the captors to secure a safe route from the place of detention to the Lebanese border. This obstacle was finally overcome by agreeing to hand over the bishop to a mediator in a Syrian region that is not controlled by opposition armed groups. The sources declined to talk about the kidnappers’ demands.

The church was informed that the bishops’ captors held the bishops in two separate locations. The sources denied having any proof that one of the bishops had died, and denied their knowledge of the identity of the kidnapping group.